Opera Version:58.0.3135.117 Opera is up to date but Videos don't play

A Former User

Hey folks, is anybody able to find a .deb package for version 75 of the chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra package? On my PC, v76 is now installed and obviously that breaks Opera's video support again.

A Former User

Found it!

Go to https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/chromium-browser
Look for your Ubuntu version (e.g. Bionic Beaver)
Click on latest Chromium Browser version
Scroll down, click on "chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra"
In "Published Versions", find previous version
Select that, then you should find a .deb download

A Former User

Open a linux terminal (I tested it on Ubuntu distribution) and do enter these commands (one per one):

curl -L -O https://github.com/iteufel/nwjs-ffmpeg-prebuilt/releases/download/0.39.2/0.39.2-linux-x64.zip

unzip 0.39.2-linux-x64.zip

sudo mv libffmpeg.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffmpeg_h264.so

sudo mv /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/libffmpeg.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/libffmpeg.so.orig

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libffmpeg_h264.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/libffmpeg.so

A Former User @Guest

@pinportal After this, close and open Opera browser again. It will work videos from Fb.com, Twitter.com, etc (all websites that needs ffmpeg installed)

A Former User @Guest

@pinportal just want to note
after every opera update, your symlink will be overwritten

I used to do the same thing using chromium's direct libffmpeg.so and got tired of it...
I've just been telling people to stop using H.264 and use VP8 or VP9 instead
(VP8 is better as it's easier on your CPU)

if they don't want my like and watch time on YT, that's fine by me

A Former User

@Tcll
But it is not something that we can control, right?

For example: I like to watch videos from Facebook.com newsfeed and Twitter.com newsfeed. Facebook and Twitter use H.264 and not VP8/VP9. So our browser must support it.

And Yes, every opera update, you should do this process.
But sometimes not.

For example. I did it when it was installed on my PC Opera 62. Then I have updated this week to 63 and today I updated it again to a new version of 63.
H.264 is still being supported and I did it only once when I had Opera 62.

I know this is not the ideal option (Google Chrome and Firefox for Ubuntu support H.264 natively), but it is what we have for today.

And we can't force the biggest sites in the world to migrate to VP8 / VP9.

A Former User @Guest

@pinportal said in Opera Version:58.0.3135.117 Opera is up to date but Videos don't play:

@Tcll
But it is not something that we can control, right?

And we can't force the biggest sites in the world to migrate to VP8 / VP9.

right, it's up to a hierarchy of owners who are able to re-encode the video in a playable format
you CAN however disable H.264 to try to force something like VP8 if available with an extension called "enhanced-h264ify"

this fixed quite a few youtube videos for me, but not all videos

I know this is not the ideal option (Google Chrome and Firefox for Ubuntu support H.264 natively), but it is what we have for today.

firefox actually supports h.264 through x.264 which is the open source rewrite of h.264
tbh, I'm not sure why opera isn't using this

A Former User @Guest

@Tcll said in Opera Version:58.0.3135.117 Opera is up to date but Videos don't play:

@pinportal said in Opera Version:58.0.3135.117 Opera is up to date but Videos don't play:

@Tcll
But it is not something that we can control, right?

firefox actually supports h.264 through x.264 which is the open source rewrite of h.264
tbh, I'm not sure why opera isn't using this

It’s not how patents works. You (as developer) can not just including this decoders in your browser without payments.

Firefox use same decoders as Opera.
On Windows, macOS, Linux it’s different decoders built in Operating System.

For Linux it’s some sort of ffmpeg + x.264.

Only problem in Linux is dependency hell and different environments (different library versions).

Firefox is open source browser and it has special versions for different Linux distributives. This versions created by distributives maintainers (not by Mozilla).

A Former User @Guest

@adasiko said in Opera Version:58.0.3135.117 Opera is up to date but Videos don't play:

It’s not how patents works. You (as developer) can not just including this decoders in your browser without payments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X264

x264 is a free and open-source software library

I think that says otherwise
yeah you can
there is no payments
it's FOSS

Only problem in Linux is dependency hell and different environments (different library versions).

not sure what that has to do with opera's potential implementation of x.264
there shouldn't be that many dependencies involved between distros (except KDE which is a dependency meme)

that said, x.264 should be cross-distro compatible >_>

EDIT:
I hate USB keyboards, if you find any more typos, this is why.

A Former User @Guest

@Tcll

free and open-source software library

It’s not enough.

H.264 is protected by patents owned by various parties. A license covering most (but not all) patents essential to H.264 is administered by a patent pool administered by MPEG LA.[3]

The commercial use of patented H.264 technologies requires the payment of royalties to MPEG LA and other patent owners. MPEG LA has allowed the free use of H.264 technologies for streaming Internet video that is free to end users, and Cisco Systems pays royalties to MPEG LA on behalf of the users of binaries for its open source H.264 encoder.

A Former User @Guest

@adasiko I see, so Cisco pays the royalties in order for x.264 to be free for us

I knew someone was paying royalties, but never really paid attention
I accept ignorance here

still, my argument stands
as a FOSS developer myself who wholeheartedly supports FOSS development, I can do what I want.

why am I supporting opera if I'm a FOSS supporter?
because unlike any other browser, Opera is the most secure thanks to the modifications they made to chromium's content blocker to block ads and trackers.

it's a shame no other browser makes any attempt to be this secure.
it's also a shame Opera doesn't try to reap the benefits of FOSS for even better security.

EDIT:
what about Tor?
put Opera through a Tor network on it's VPN allowing optimized connection
and you'll have better security and anonymity than Tor Browser.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@Tcll TOR is a discussion for another topic.

A Former User @leocg

@leocg yeah, I only wanted to bring the thing to light as it is important for a comparison, not derail the topic

thanks for the precautionary measure though